Political Realignment
Once upon a time… well no… across time, more than once, our major political parties, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, have changed. That was going to be a rant about the ideological shifts of the Southern Democrats of old. Let’s keep it less specific.
We always have the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. They seem to be a bit eternal to our political process in the United States. But, their actual politics have not been.
The best metaphor I can give you right now is a sports team. The Chicago Bulls are still the Chicago Bulls. The jerseys are basically the same. They still play at the United Center. Still five players on the court, a coach, etc. But, the Chicago Bulls of the Michael Jordan era are much different than the Chicago Bulls of the Derrick Rose era. They’re still a basketball team and they’re still working towards the same goal: winning. But, they have different leadership, different approaches, different strategies, different values, etc.
The teams are still the same, Democrats and Republicans - I won’t get on a rant about a two party political system right now. I’ll save that for another day - but their identities and ideologies are shifting wildly.
From my perspective, Republicans forced the hand. I won’t say that in recent years or even decades, across several Republican administrations, that the Republicans have been near the center of the political spectrum, but in the MAGA era, the Republican party as a whole has fully realigned their politics around a far right political ideology.
I don’t think that the nation or its citizens have re-aligned their politics around a far right ideology.
But critically, I think that both parties, across a succession of administrations, have been captured by the extreme ideologies on their side of the aisle - and by financial interest. Again, that's for another rant. Get money out of politics, that's all I’m saying.
But, as both parties shifted slowly to their far corner of the ideological spectrum, the middle of the country got left out. I think history has made it fairly clear that the majority of the people sit somewhere in the middle and are not dichotomously split across all political issues.
And so I am hopeful and optimistic. I am also quite insistent upon living in a shared sense of reality so I recognize how minimally and sporadically it feels like the Democratic party is meeting the moment. But, if the Republican Party wants to align itself with a far right ideology, I see no reason why the Democratic Party should not realign itself with the middle and become the party of the American People.
It cannot just be lip service. One of the most shocking aspects (not really, actually, if you think about it) of the political landscape created by the MAGA movement is the retreat of governors, senators, and state representatives from engagement with their constituents. Obviously, what they’re doing isn’t popular or really populist at all. It’s pretty niche political maneuvering aimed to please the extreme ends of the aisle.
The Democratic Party should reinvent itself. Become the party that speaks to the people and addresses the needs that they want addressed, that enacts the policies that they want to see, and that brings to power people who represent them. Be the party that removes money from politics. Become the party that has a moral backbone. Become the party that people can trust and that people can access. Become the party that looks like the American people because it is the American people.
Or, maybe we should toy with the idea of slowly building a new coalition in the middle? Feasibility feels low here. I am much more optimistic about a Democratic realignment. But, hey, keep our options open?
Anyway, the Democratic Party is searching for an identity and a new politics. I think it should be easy to find. Just go actually speak to the American people. Become their party.
I think a lot of us are really waiting for someone to drop the partisan bullsh*t. I have lived in a lot of places and been around a lot of people. Whether it's recognized at the top (or even sometimes throughout the middle), there is much more that we as people have in common than we have dividing us. There is a middle politics. And someone needs to go find it and claim it as their politics. And stay committed to it.
Anyway, that’s what I’m thinking about.
Leave a comment. Let’s have a conversation.
